Led by a quartet of sophomores, the Cerritos College women's cross country team came in third place at the Golden West Invitational on Friday. Competing on the 5K course at Central Park in Huntington Beach, the Falcons compiled 87 team points and trailed only Glendale College (32 team points) and College of the Canyons (55 team points) over of the 13 teams. The team will run the Brubaker Invitational at Irvine Regional Park next Friday.
Marylu Pulido (Whittier HS) was the sixth runner to finish the race and posted a time of 19:47.7 and was edged out of fifth place by one second. Elsa Vazquez Vallin (Warren HS) pulled away from several runners to cross the finish line in 20:15.3 to earn 13th place, with Stephanie Perea (Downey HS) earning 20th place overall when she posted a time of 20:44.6 The fourth sophomore to help the team with their overall score was Maria Orosco (Katella HS), whose time of 20:54.8 put her in 24th place out of 122 runners.
The fifth Falcon to cross the finish line was freshman Alexis Garfias (Schurr HS), who rounded out the team scoring with her 36th place finish in 21:18.6. Cerritos had five other runners compete on the day and they included Kathia Munoz (Paramount HS; 22:11.9; 49th place); Neiva Cuevas (Western HS; 22:26.7; 54th place); Brianna Gill (La Serna HS; 23:25.3; 68th place); Adriana Velasco (Downey HS; 24:37.6; 83rd place) and Jaida Bailey (Vista del Lago HS; 27:07.8; 104th place).